Minilesson Print
Creating a Growth Mindset
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Your mindset is the way that you think about learning. A fixed mindset means that you think you are either good or bad at something and can't change. A growth mindset means that you expect to improve your ability with practice. Developing a growth mindset can help you learn any subject. One way to develop a growth mindset is to replace fixed thoughts with thoughts focused on growth.
| Don't Say | Do Say |
| I'm so stupid. | What am I missing? |
| I'm awesome at this. | I seem to be on the right track. |
| I just can’t do math. | I’m going to train my brain in math. |
| This is too hard. | This is going to take some time. |
| She’s so smart, she makes me sick. | I’m going to figure out how she’s doing it. |
| It’s fine the way it is, and yours isn’t any better. | That’s an interesting idea for improvement. |
Your Turn Focus on growth. Replace each fixed-mindset thought with a thought focused on growth.
- I just don't understand science.
- I'll never be as good as other people at math.
- I have natural talent, so I don't have to study.
- I won't change my project for anybody.
- The stories in this class are just too hard to read.
- Some people are born to succeed and others to fail.
- I don't want to take any hard classes.
- If it's not on the test, I don't care about it.
- Talent is more important than hard work.
- Practice is for losers.
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Creating a Growth Mindset by Thoughtful Learning is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at k12.thoughtfullearning.com/minilesson/creating-growth-mindset.